


Beneath a River of Colour

by Sea-Glass (PJ_Marvell)



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Holiday Cheer Event, M/M, Sequel to Polar Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 12:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17162378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PJ_Marvell/pseuds/Sea-Glass
Summary: Edward's first thought is that it's bloody freezing.  His second is that the sky is alight.





	Beneath a River of Colour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arazsya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arazsya/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Polar Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17096420) by [Arazsya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arazsya/pseuds/Arazsya). 



> Written for the Holiday Cheer Event: December 24th - wonder. A sequel of sorts to Polar Night by Arazsya (<3). As was mentioned in that fic, I started shipping this purely because it would have upset Bertie, but I am now deeply emotionally compromised. (I regret nothing).

Edward opens his eyes to Tjelvar standing over him, whispering his name.

He’s awake immediately, jolting upright, suddenly aware of the wool of his pyjamas against his skin and how it’s not armour, won’t give any protection against whatever has Tjelvar shaking him awake and _Apollo_ why is he even here? The cabin is barely wide enough to pace in and he’s still somehow left his morningstar out of reach, he’s the worst paladin in the world and now Tjelvar is in danger and he’s _useless again._

“What is it?” He catches Tjelvar’s shoulder as the orc shies out of the way to avoid being headbutted as Edward struggles to get out of bed. “What’s happening?”

“Eddie! Breathe!” Tjelvar has one hand up in front of him, hovering above Edward’s exposed collarbone. “It’s all right. We’re safe.” His eyes flick up to Edward’s hair and there’s a suggestion of a smile on his lips.

“What - is everything alright?” Edward resists the urge to run a hand through his bedhead. The cabin is dark, but the last embers of the fire make it bright enough to see by. There’s nothing dangerous anywhere he can see it, but the shadows are long and Edward’s fist bunches in the blankets.

“Yes, it’s fine.” Tjelvar rocks back, standing. Then, unexpectedly, he beckons Edward over. “I’ve got something to show you. Outside, so get your boots on. Come on.”

Edward sits there a moment, heart still coming down from a hectic beat, and looks at Tjelvar. He’s already wrapping a scarf around his neck, and while he’s said they’re safe there’s something of a tension in his shoulders, an unstilled movement that’s uncharacteristic from Tjelvar when he’s off a dig site.

“It’s not morning yet,” he mutters, swinging his legs off the bed. Tjelvar looks over, raising his eyebrows.

“Eddie. We’re two months into a four-month night. It’s not going to be morning for a while yet.”

“Oh,” Edward blinks, rubs sleep out of his eyes. “Right.”

Edward does get up then, casting about for his clothes, hesitating over his breastplate. Everything had gone from near-idyllic to some sort of frozen hell in slightly less than a week and now Edward feels permanently vulnerable without his armour. Not that it had helped him at any point.

Edward is still cursing himself for all of this. He’d spent months with Tjelvar, done his best to be helpful and useful on the digs, to know enough to not get in the way and help them along. It was quite easy, actually - Edward’s never been one for book learning but Tjelvar teaches under the open sky and when he talks on a subject he loves it’s near impossible not to get pulled along.

(The fact that he knows, in detail, the way Tjelvar’s mouth crooks up and his eyes glitter when he’s discussing the distant past is something Edward’s doing his very best not to think about up here in a tiny cabin in the frozen north with a bed they have to share.)

Edward was hoping that he and Tjelvar might have been friends one day, but that had been before that last dig. Edward had actually been excited - Tjelvar had high hopes for that casket and what it might have informed them about changing burial customs in late neolithic England. But instead there had been that damn jewel and Edward had been too completely, dumbly preoccupied to notice the knife until it had slid beneath the edge of his breastplate into a lung. Then Tjelvar had grabbed the stone and whatever curse it had stored had fused it to his hand; now Edward isn’t sure what makes him more afraid - the concrete threat of someone arriving to cut the stone from Tjelvar’s skin, or the abstract one of what the creeping thing will do to him.

(He'd been asleep the second time - _asleep._ If it hadn't been for Tjelvar...Edward is glad that Tjelvar didn't argue too hard against him coming out here. He’s not sure he could have coherently argued his point after literally falling asleep on the job.)

Tjelvar, at the window, calls “hurry up, they’re starting!” and jolts Edward from his reverie. Edward decides to abandon his breastplate. It doesn’t sit well - there have been too many knives pointed at or through them and every shadow could hide another. He’s not helped the situation by piling wood everywhere. (Going to collect firewood every time Tjelvar threatened to talk to him wasn’t, perhaps, the best strategy. But Tjelvar has a knack of pulling the words from the back of his throat and if they’re going to stay in this damn cabin for any length of time there are some things that should remain unspoken).

“All right,” he says, finally finishing with his boots. His morningstar hangs at his hip, though. He’s not parting with that, not for anything, not now.

Tjelvar is struggling with the bar, attempting to dislodge it one-handed and Edward hurries over to help him. He half-expects to be waved off, but whatever is driving Tjelvar is more important than his usual insistence on independence. The door opens and Tjelvar impatiently clutches Edward’s hand and pulls him out into the darkness.

Edward’s first thought is that it’s _bloody freezing._

His second is that the sky is alight.

Streams of green light pick their way across the sky, shifting and shimmering like heat haze in the ice-crystal night. Edward looks from one end to the other, looking for a source for the lights and finding none. It’s a bright ribbon of colour, vivid in the polar darkness, and for all he can see there’s no reason for it. It’s one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen, and it’s just _there._

“The aurora borealis,” says Tjelvar from beside him. “It happens all year around, but most often in winter.”

Edward keeps watching, feeling his slack jaw turn into a smile of helpless wonder. He tries to watch the whole sky and individual tiny patches at once - he wants to see the wide sweep of light on its sky-spanning journey and at the same time wants to watch each individual bar of light as it lengthens and shimmers. The colours fade and brighten gently, keeping a slow beat, in time with one another. Every now and then, one shines brighter than the others, lengthens down towards the snows and turns a bright, watermelon pink.

Edward laughs. He can’t help it. An effervescent joy is bubbling in his chest and it spills out in a laugh, his breath misting immediately and catching in green and pink sparkles. He feels light and buoyed in a way he hasn’t since they set eyes on that blasted gemstone and the sky is awash with brilliant beauty and he doesn’t want this moment to end.

Edward risks a glance at Tjelvar, only to find him watching not the jewelled sky but Edward’s face, something soft and fond creasing lines beside his eyes.

“Thank you,” Edward says after a moment. “For showing me this.”

“No, thank you,” Tjelvar replies, his lips twitching into almost a smile before he looks upwards again. “Watching the lights with you reminded me how beautiful they are.”

Edward holds a little tighter to Tjelvar’s hand then. Something in him eases in the polar darkness. It’s not that he forgets the awfulness of the last week, of how badly he failed in his duty, of how badly he failed _Tjelvar_ , or of the knot of feelings that sit unspoken and unfulfilled behind his sternum. But the lights and the cold have reduced them both to two sets of misted breath and ten entwined fingers. Edward can feel the edges of himself blur outwards towards the horizon.

Eventually the aurora begins to fade, the lights a little less vivid, the sky brightening further off. Edward doesn’t move yet - he wants to make this last as long as possible - then Tjelvar’s hand twitches in his and he shifts. Edward’s hand tightens compulsively, although he regrets it a moment later and loosens his hold.

When Tjelvar still doesn’t let go, Edward looks over at him, to find him once again looking back, that same tenderness in his eyes. Something swells in Edward’s chest.

They start speaking at the same time.

“Tjelvar, I -”

“I should have said -”

They laugh at the same time too, a release of tension. Edward isn’t sure how long Tjelvar has been standing close enough that Edward can feel the warmth of his exhale across the bridge of his nose. They’re there now, though, barely a breath away from each other. He watches the last glimmers of the aurora flicker in Tjelvar’s bottomless eyes and once again isn’t sure which one of them moves first.

The kiss is a slow and thorough thing, unfurling like a frost-fern on a window. Tjelvar kisses like he’s writing a thesis, starting gently and building in detail and flourish as he goes. It doesn’t escape Edward’s notice that Tjelvar pauses each time he deepens the kiss, leaves space for Edward to pull back or change direction. Not that Edward is planning to stop him. Tjelvar’s lips are firm and soft, his movements assured and if he’s feeling anything like the giddiness rising through Edward’s spine, he doesn’t show it.

Edward pushes himself closer, wrapping his arms tighter around Tjelvar’s shoulders. He wants - he doesn’t know what he wants, except Tjelvar. Wants Tjelvar in all and every capacity he’s willing to give himself. Wants him with a desperation he’s never felt before, a creeping certainty that Tjelvar’s become vital, somehow, to his everyday function. It’s frightening and glorious and overwhelming and Edward wishes he knew how to express that in words. As he doesn’t, he’ll have to settle for expressing it in a kiss. Edward’s not sure he can do that either, but the warm slide of Tjelvar’s lips on his seems like the only real point in a world of shifting snow and cold and Edward doesn’t stop kissing back, save for the occasional grudging breath.

Nothing, however, can last forever and It’s Edward who eventually ruins it, of course. He shudders, the cold suddenly overwhelming him, and Tjelvar breaks away.

“Gods, Eddie, you must be freezing - why didn’t you say anything?” Tjelvar runs a worried hand down his arm before taking him firmly by the elbow and pulling him back to the cabin.

“I’m fine,” Edward protests, betrayed by his own shivering frame as Tjelvar fusses him inside the door.

In the firelight of the cabin the world returns. Tjelvar struggles with his coat, waving Edward off irritably when he tries to help. He drops his arm to one side, cradling it as though to keep it as far out of Edward’s sight as possible, trying to massage some feeling into the skin around the gem. Edward pretends not to notice and picks a few logs up (weighing heavy with all the things he hasn’t said yet) and rekindles the fire from the embers, bringing the temperature of the cabin back up. That done, he hovers, twisting his fingers, suddenly knocked out of the groove of life in the cabin and unsure of everything.

“Ed? Everything alright?” Tjelvar’s voice from the tiny seat in front of the fire jolts him out of his hesitation. He breathes in to say yes, to say everything is fine, but his eyes catch the glinting surface of the gem and he _feels_ his face betray him.

“Edward,” breathes Tjelvar, standing. Edward braces himself for a command to buck himself up, to stop fretting and do something _useful_ , but instead Tjelvar reaches out and pulls him close, threading his fingers into his hair and pressing a kiss to Edward’s temple. Edward almost sags into the hug, his breath escaping him in one shaky exhale as he presses his nose into the crook of Tjelvar’s neck and grips handfuls of the Tjelvar’s shirt.

Edward wants to say _I’m sorry I didn’t protect you._ Wants to say _I’d take the stone from you in a moment_ , and _please let me stay, I think I’ll die if I’m away from you._ But all of these things are just extended ways to say _I love you_ and the enormity of that feeling sticks in his throat and traps everything else behind it.

“Everything will be alright, Ed,” whispers Tjelvar into his ear, and Edward almost laughs - he’s not the one with a potential death sentence wedged in his arm, he should be the one doing the comforting.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he mutters fiercely. “I’ll keep you safe - I’ll do anything.”

Tjelvar pulls away, just far enough that he can look Edward in the eyes, one hand rising to cup Edward’s cheek.

“You’ve done enough,” Tjelvar replies, placing a kiss like a prayer on Edward’s lips, his thumb skating across his cheekbone. “You came here with me. That’s enough. That’s more than enough.”

Tjelvar kisses him again, tender and studied, and there is suddenly not enough room in Edward’s chest for this. He’s too used to being surplus to requirements, to being a burden and an obligation and the reverence with which Tjelvar’s lips move on his, with which Tjelvar’s fingers rake through his scalp, is too much for him. 

“It’ll be alright,” says Tjelvar, pulling away and smiling gently. “It will.” Tjelvar waits, one hand on Edward’s neck, until Edward can pull himself together and nod and smile in return. Something does loosen in Edward’s shoulders as Tjelvar’s fingers rest against his pulse point - he knows, of course he does, that everything is unlikely to be alright, but in that moment he can believe that they have a chance. That maybe together they can beat this. Tjelvar hums a little in contentment, brushes his thumb along the ridge of Edward’s jaw and then moves off to re-stoke the fire.

As Tjelvar turns away, the rising firelight catches the jewel in his arm and it glitters. It throws a shimmer at Edward, fleeting, bright. Almost like it’s winking.

Almost like it knows something Edward doesn’t.


End file.
